North Central Railways initiates several steps to increase fright loading

PRAYAGRAJ: Authorities of North Central Railways (NCR) are working on an ambitious plan to increase the fright loading by 1.4 times of assigned target of 16.94 million tonnes by the Railway Board for 2020-21. This will help NCR to equal revenue gap due to less passenger train operations to a large extent.
This was informed by the GM, NCR Rajiv Chaudhry in a video conferencing with the minister of state of railways Suresh Angadi, on Wednesday. The minister was reviewing the freight loading performance of NCR.
The GM also informed about the freight loading performance till August-20, revenue from freight loading, efforts on NCR to increase freight loading volume and average speed of goods trains, short term improvements in goods sheds and action plan for major infrastructural works etc. Development of goods sheds on private public partnership (PPP) model was one of the several steps that NCR has initiated.
“Short term inputs have already been given in 16 goods sheds and NCR is working in mission mode to improve goods sheds on long-term basis for which ten works have been sanctioned in current financial year”, said the GM. He further added that apart from inputs given by Railway, business proposals have also been invited in Prayagraj and Agra divisions to develop 17 goods sheds through revenue sharing model under PPP for which Expression of Interest ( EOI) have already been invited .
Chaudhry also apprised that NCR is the leading railway zone among all zones in finalising Station to Station(STS) proposals. It has already finalized five STS proposals from Datia, Dabra, Etah, Kherli and Rayaru. STS proposals of Lalitpur and Kabrai are under agreement stage and five proposals from Hathras Qilah, Kabrai, Mathutra, Etha (2nd proposal) and Pankidham/CPC Kanpur are under finalisation taking total tally of STS to 12.
The minister congratulated the GM and his team of officers and staff of NCR for efforts towards increase in freight loading, average speed of goods trains and bringing new traffic streams.